The role of job insecurity in emotional exhaustion and work engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic: the moderating effect of organizational reward and care policies (El papel de la inseguridad laboral en el agotamiento emocional y el compromiso laboral durante la pandemia de la COVID-19: el efecto moderador de la recompensa organizacional y las políticas de cuidado)

Abstract

This study developed and tested a moderation model to investigate the effects of job insecurity due to the coronavirus disease of 2019 . We hypothesized that reward and care policies can moderate the relationship between job insecurity due to COVID-19 and employee outcomes (i.e., emotional exhaustion and work engagement). Two-wave data were collected from 344 worker-manager pairs in China, demonstrating that job insecurity negatively affects work engagement. Conversely, job insecurity had a significant positive effect on emotional exhaustion. Another finding was that the reward policy was less negatively related to job insecurity due to COVID-19 than employees' work engagement. Moreover, care policy was related less positively to job insecurity due to COVID-19 than to employees' emotional exhaustion. RESUMENEste estudio desarrolló y comprobó un modelo de moderación para investigar los efectos de la inseguridad laboral debida a la enfermedad del coronavirus de 2019 (COVID-19). Nuestra hipótesis es que las políticas de recompensa y de cuidado pueden moderar la relación existente entre la inseguridad laboral debida a la COVID-19 y sus consecuencias en los trabajadores (a saber, agotamiento emocional y compromiso laboral). Se recogieron los datos de un grupo de 344 pares trabajador-jefe en China en dos oleadas (two-wave data), demostrando que la inseguridad laboral afecta negativamente al compromiso laboral. Y a la inversa, la inseguridad laboral tuvo un efecto positivo significativo sobre el agotamiento emocional. También encontramos que la política de recompensa se relacionó menos negativamente con la inseguridad laboral derivada de la COVID-19 que con el compromiso laboral de los trabajadores. Además, la política de cuidado se relacionó menos positivamente con la inseguridad laboral debida a la COVID-19 que con el agotamiento emocional.

The role of employee assistance programs under COVID‐19‐induced work–family conflict: Effects on service employees' work engagement and burnout

“…Such high WFC means an individual has to invest additional energy to deal with conflict both at home and at work (Pluut, Ilies, Su, Weng & Liang, 2022). This gradually erodes and finally exhausts personal resources (Bakker et al ., 2019) and results in emotional exhaustion (Allgood et al ., 2022; Shao, Fang, Wang, Chang & Wang, 2021; Tsai, 2022). For service employees, WFC (as a result, for example, of unstable and long work hours) is likely to exhaust personal resources and lead to burnout.…”

“…Previous research largely considered how social support moderates the relationship between perceived stress and WFC (Singh & Nayak, 2015). In terms of institutional moderators, Tsai (2022) presents the only research on the mitigating effect of reward and care policies on WFC and subsequent behavioral outcomes.…”

“…This, in turn, affects a person's mental and physical health (Du, Derks & Bakker, 2018). Both Tsai (2022) and Wang et al . (2021) argue that these negative effects, brought on by WFC and FWC, can be mitigated by providing employees with various forms of resources.…”

“…It is highly plausible that service workers' perceived stress from COVID‐19 has negative spillover effects on employees' work–family balance. Currently, we lack understanding of how the impacts of perceived stress from COVID‐19 permeate service workers' home lives, and whether this triggers work–family conflict and family–work conflict (FWC) (Tsai, 2022). There is also growing attention to the importance of issues surrounding work‐life balance (Ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012; Wood, Oh, Park & Kim, 2020).…”

“…This, in turn, affects a person's mental and physical health (Du, Derks & Bakker, 2018). Both Tsai (2022) and Wang et al (2021) argue that these negative effects, brought on by WFC and FWC, can be mitigated by providing employees with various forms of resources. Therefore, in order to mitigate the negative effects of the "resource loss spiral," new resources must be replenished in order to avoid continuous resource depletion.…”